Dubai, United Arab Emirates – North Korea’s stockpile of 90 percent enriched uranium for military use amounts to about 2 tons.
That’s enough to produce several atomic bombs, a South Korean minister said Thursday.
The South Korean Defense Ministry has repeatedly said that North Korea possesses a “large” amount of highly enriched uranium.
It is the basic material used in the production of nuclear warheads.
what’s up?
In a rare public estimate, South Korean Reunification Affairs Minister Chung Dong-young said, “According to estimates by experts including the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), North Korea currently possesses about 2,000 kilograms of enriched uranium with a purity of 90 percent or higher”.
“At this very moment, uranium centrifuges in the north are operating in four locations,” he told reporters.
He explained that “only 5 to 6 kilograms of plutonium are enough to make one nuclear bomb.”
He added that 2,000 kilograms of uranium enriched at this level would be “enough to manufacture a huge number of nuclear weapons.”
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 42 kilograms of highly enriched uranium are enough to make one nuclear weapon.
Therefore, two tons could be enough to produce about 47 nuclear warheads.
pressing issue
Chung stressed that “stopping North Korea’s nuclear development is an urgent issue”.
At the same time, he considered that sanctions would not be effective, and that the only solution lay in a summit between Pyongyang and Washington.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said this week that he was open to talks with the United States.
But on the condition that Pyongyang maintains its nuclear arsenal.
North Korea did not publicly disclose details of its uranium enrichment facility until September.
It conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is subject to international sanctions due to its banned programs.
North Korea is believed to operate several enrichment facilities, including one at the Yongbyon nuclear site, which Pyongyang says it decommissioned after talks, although it reinstated it in 2021.
Expansion without borders
The South Korean minister blamed the previous administration.
He considered that by classifying North Korea as the “main enemy” and insisting on denuclearization first, it allowed North Korea’s nuclear capabilities to “expand without borders”.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who took office in June, pledged to take a more open approach to Pyongyang than his predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol.
Lee promised Tuesday at the United Nations to work to put an end to the “vicious cycle” of tensions with North Korea and not seek regime change there.
